Ricardo Ruiz Aguilar

Ricardo Ruiz Aguilar is a communist lawyer whose legal expertise and clandestine political solidarity make a forbidden family visit possible. Nephew of Inés Ruiz Maldonado, he helps Manuel Arroyo Benítez disguise himself as a fellow defense lawyer and enter Carabanchel Prison to see his son Guillermo, whose imprisonment and disputed parentage have placed him beyond ordinary channels of contact. Ricardo’s role is brief in the novel’s larger story, but decisive: he converts a lawyer’s credential into a means of connection across the state’s walls.

Identity and Background

Ricardo is the firstborn son of Inés Ruiz Maldonado’s older brother and is thirty years old when the narrator first meets him. He is the same age as the narrator’s eldest son, a detail that quietly collapses the distance between the lawyer’s generation and the family crisis he is helping to address. His communist affiliation is not merely a label: by the time he acts for Manuel, he belongs to a network whose members are prepared to take concrete legal and personal risks for one another.

The narrator recognizes Ricardo by his appearance: a clean-shaven face, moderately long hair, a light shirt open at the collar, and a light sweater draped over his shoulders instead of a jacket and tie. His clothing is deliberately unlike the dress associated with young Francoists, while remaining unremarkable enough not to attract attention. At first it gives him an almost childlike air, but he quickly shows that this appearance should not be confused with naivety. He is alert to the danger and legal consequences of the plan he is proposing.

Family and Political Connections

Ricardo’s family connection to Inés links him to the narrator’s earlier clandestine life. He recalls a comrade whom the narrator had sheltered and operated on repeatedly at Cipri and Carmen’s home on Buenavista Street after the man had crashed through a pastry-shop window. That former episode has passed into the family’s extended memory: Ricardo is related to its participants, and the lawyer who now helps the narrator is himself the nephew of the woman connected to that earlier network.

His communist commitments also connect him to a wider infrastructure of mutual assistance. The narrator understands the Communist Party as one of the few institutions in Spain that still functions effectively, and Ricardo’s plan bears out that judgment: an unfamiliar lawyer is willing to lend his credentials, while Ricardo coordinates the legal cover and assumes responsibility for getting the narrator into the prison. The operation depends not on a single act of daring but on trust distributed among people who understand the risks of clandestine cooperation.

The Prison Visit

When the narrator learns that his son is being held in preventive detention and awaiting trial before the Public Order Tribunal, he initially considers visiting Carabanchel directly. Rita points out that he has no proven kinship with the prisoner, and that even a request from the prisoner would not secure permission. The barrier is both procedural and personal: the state does not recognize the relationship that would make a visit legitimate.

Ricardo proposes an illicit alternative. He tells the narrator plainly that the scheme is not simply irregular but constitutes a criminal offense, emphasizing that he has a professional duty to make the legal risk clear. Then he offers a practical route: the narrator will enter as a lawyer, using the identification of a colleague who is to be added to the son’s defense. Ricardo has already notified the court that another lawyer will join the case, a normal enough procedural step to avoid immediate suspicion. The proposed substitute is a Madrid-barred lawyer who lives in Alcalá de Henares, usually handles routine neighborhood legal work rather than criminal cases, and is a Party sympathizer not already known to the prison staff.

The colleague is Ángel Valverde Roldán. Without knowing the narrator personally, he lends his Madrid Bar Association card for several months, accepting that it will carry an excellent forgery. Ricardo’s plan also provides a court document identifying the cardholder as defense counsel for the prisoner registered under the name José Antonio Urbieta Priego. With those papers, the narrator enters Carabanchel on 26 October 1968 without difficulty. Ricardo’s contribution is therefore not limited to the idea of impersonation: he assembles the legal pretext, coordinates the supporting credentials, and helps transform a prohibited visit into an administratively plausible one.

A Visit Built on Concealment

Before they go in, Ricardo explains how lawyer-prisoner interviews work. They will not use the public visiting room, but a separate room divided by a partition with a small window. A prison officer will initially be present on the prisoner’s side, then will normally step into the corridor while leaving the door open. Ricardo tells the narrator that speaking quietly should allow father and son to converse without being overheard. He also gives him a folder to pass across: the narrator is to say aloud that the papers need reviewing, allowing them to talk while the prisoner appears to read.

The instructions define both the ingenuity and the limit of Ricardo’s intervention. He can make the visit possible, furnish it with a cover story, and give the two men a narrow interval of relative privacy; he cannot remove the state’s surveillance or the emotional uncertainty that precedes the encounter. The narrator’s most pressing question is how Ricardo has described the visit to Guillermo, but he is too afraid to ask. He enters the prison without knowing what his son expects, and Ricardo’s careful arrangements can protect their conversation from an officer’s attention without preparing either man for its personal stakes.

Narrative Role and Significance

Ricardo’s scene brings together several recurring mechanisms of the novel: forged identities, bureaucratic procedures, and solidarity practiced through specific acts. The false document is not an abstract symbol of resistance. It is a working credential, paired with a court notice, a colleague’s borrowed professional identity, and a carefully staged exchange of papers in a partitioned interview room. Ricardo understands that institutions can be navigated through the very forms they use to classify and constrain people.

His importance lies in making kinship actionable where the state refuses to recognize it. The narrator cannot present himself openly as Guillermo’s father and expect access; Ricardo instead creates a legal fiction that allows the father to cross the prison gate. The scheme remains criminal, and Ricardo does not disguise that fact, but he treats the law’s prohibition as an obstacle to a visit rather than as a reason to abandon the imprisoned son. His combination of candor, procedural precision, and political trust makes him a crucial intermediary between clandestine resistance and the intimate need to reach family.